The White Mare: The Dalraida Trilogy, Book One (33 page)

Conaire shook his head, leaning back against the oak behind him. ‘He married you. He made kin ties with your tribe. He vowed to support your people. He will not go back on these vows, Rhiann. Not the Eremon I know.’

She could not believe that. ‘Conaire, do you know much about druid practices?’

Her question obviously surprised him. ‘No, and I don’t want to know!’ He grinned. ‘I only want to know about the Otherworld in song, in tales, and when I eventually go there myself !’

She did not return the smile. ‘But you know about the sight, don’t you?’

‘I know what it is, yes.’

She drew absently in the dirt with one finger. ‘Last night I did a kind of seeing. And I saw Eremon, and a Roman. They were talking and smiling, like friends.’ She looked up at him. ‘Like allies.’

‘But you may have been wrong. Sometimes seeings aren’t true.’

‘Mine usually are.’

‘You could not hear what they said—’

‘He was smiling, Conaire.’

Conaire thought, the stirring leaves flickering shadows across his face. ‘Could you see his eyes, closely?’

‘Well, no, but—’

‘There, then!’ He sounded relieved. ‘Only I could tell if Eremon was lying, and only if I saw his eyes.’

‘Lying?’

‘Rhiann, what if they have pressured him to do something he does not want to do? He might have to appear to go along with them. I’m sure you have done it, many times, as he has. He is very good at it.’

Rhiann frowned, clasping her knees. ‘It does not seem the most likely explanation.’

‘It does if you know Eremon. And trust him.’ He touched her arm. ‘Do you trust me, Rhiann?’

She looked into his startling blue eyes. ‘You make it hard not to.’

‘Then wait a few more days before you do anything.’

‘If you believe in him so much, then why aren’t you riding off to save him?’

‘Did he appear to be in danger?’

An image of Eremon and Samana on the bed flashed into Rhiann’s mind, and she hunched into her arms. ‘No, not directly.’

‘Then I say this. He told me to wait here, and I won’t disobey him – that is how we both stay alive. He will find a way to come back, and if he can’t, I could not help him anyway. He would want me to save you.’

She stared at him in disbelief.
Why? Eremon does not care about me
.

‘He will come back, Rhiann,’ Conaire said firmly, closing his eyes, resting his head against the rough bark. ‘To us.’

Chapter 30

E
remon started awake. By the Boar, he hadn’t meant to fall asleep again! He wanted only to wait until Samana was deep in slumber, not join her there himself.

He sat up, carefully disentangling his limbs from hers. But she only murmured and rolled over, her breathing even and slow. He knew just by the feel of the air creeping under the tent walls that it was close to dawn. His intention had been to wake long before this. He cursed himself, and edged closer to the table by the bed, to where his discarded clothes lay in an untidy pile on the floor.

But as he quietly slipped on his tunic and trousers, and began pulling on his boots, his eye fell on the half-eaten platter of food on the table. The wick from the oil lamp was glowing, near drowned, but its faint light outlined Samana’s meat dagger, sticking out of the roast duck.

Smiling, he grabbed the knife and thrust it down the side of his boot. Then he looked over at Samana. ‘You always were too sure of yourself, my lady,’ he whispered, and slowly got to his feet. It was time to extricate himself from this mess.

He emerged into a thick mist, lit to a lurid glow by the last, sputtering torches on stakes around the tent. Peering around, he jumped when a figure materialized out of the fog; a soldier muffled in a woollen cloak. Agricola had obviously posted a guard. Well, Eremon expected as much. At the man’s challenge, he thought frantically, and then managed to make it known that he wanted the waste pit. It was the only thing that he could think of, and at least it would get him away from Samana.

As they walked between the tents he could hear the soldiers stirring within, and the scrape of spoons on cookpots, and he pulled his own cloak closer about him to shut out the dank air. He had little time.

The waste pit was a long trench dug on the edge of camp, screened from the tents by a length of coarse sacking. Eremon disappeared around the screen … and the soldier followed. Without thinking, Eremon
twisted and struck, the meat dagger burying itself in the man’s throat to the hilt, only a gasp of air escaping to raise the alarm. With distaste, Eremon then rolled the body into the reeking cesspit, out of sight until dawn, at least.

Wiping the blood down his tunic, he skirted the pit edges and slipped between the stakes of the screen on the other side. Now there was only a broad, cleared lane between him and the lines of tethered oxen, and behind them, the palisade, disappearing into the mist. The sky was already lightening to grey, but Eremon was sure that, in his brown cloak, in the heavy fog and half-dark, he would be very hard to detect, even if someone was looking for him. Which they would not be. Yet.

He stood for a moment considering the bank and palisade. Fortunately, Roman camps were built to keep enemies out, not in. It was not too high on this side. He blew out his breath. ‘If I fall, I fall,’ he murmured to himself. ‘A Roman sword in the gut is better than turning traitor.’

But despite these words, he closed his eyes, fingers on the boar tusk, and prayed fervently to the Boar and to Manannán, and even to Rhiann’s Goddess.

To help the Epidii, and eventually Erin, he pleaded, he must get out of here alive.

Didius sat his horse as one of his assistants buckled his saddle-pack. While the beast shifted and stamped beneath him, he rubbed his chapped hands mournfully. This northern climate played havoc with his circulation as well as his bowels; he had been plagued with the flux ever since they left the more civilized lands in the south. If you could call them civilized.

He threw a longing glance back over his shoulder to the camp gate, which had just scraped shut behind him. Today he must go and mark out a new watchtower for Agricola’s frontier, but it was ten miles away, and so he had to set out before dawn. As if this land was not cold and dank enough in broad daylight.

He sighed. He couldn’t see anything in this cursed mist anyway. Even the nearby trees were just ghostly skeletons of branch and trunk. If the weather didn’t lift, then his uncomfortable journey would be wasted, and he’d have to return to Agricola with his task incomplete. The thought of his commander’s hard gaze made him shudder, and the shudder turned into a hacking cough that made his jowls wobble.

Blasted cold!

And that wasn’t all. He peered into the trees again. Though the entire territory had given them no trouble, and the natives had surrendered, still Didius laboured with a sick fear in his belly, as if he’d swallowed lead. What if they ran into some of those blue-painted savages from the
north? The centurions delighted in telling him stories about what these barbarians did to prisoners. Internal organs played a large part in their descriptions. Ah, to be tucked up safe in his own home.

And so, while the two soldier-assistants led his horse along the line of the camp walls, he began his morning ritual of longing for Gaul: for the grapes ripening slowly on the vines, the rich scent of new-turned earth, the sun-warmed red tiles over whitewashed walls. Most of all, he ached for his house. Though modest, it was his pride and joy, with its cunningly heated floors for winter and cooling vents for summer. His greatest love was reserved for the central fountain that diverted streams through the sleeping rooms so that occupants had fresh water on hand at all times. Automatically!

He sighed. A feat of engineering it was, worthy of his talents. Much more interesting than designing forts and walls and roads in this freezing place at the end of the earth. But to please his ageing soldier father, and win honour for his family, he had no choice but to join up. He sighed again. Perhaps soon he’d be transferred somewhere warmer. Africa perhaps … or Macedonia …

Which was when his reverie was interrupted by the single most terrifying thing he had ever seen in his life: a tall, cloaked figure that suddenly rose up from the ditch outside the walls like an avenging wraith and shot towards the nearest of Didius’s two guards. The next few moments seemed to slow down to hours.

Didius’s mouth dropped open in surprise, but when he heard the unmistakable sound of a blade sinking into flesh, and the pained grunt of the guard, his surprise melted into a shocked gasp.

‘You there!’ The other soldier ducked under the horse’s neck, but when the cloaked man let his victim’s body fall to the ground, a short sword was already in his hand. Now that the man was closer, Didius could discern his barbaric long hair and checked trousers. It was that savage! The one all the officers were talking about! He’d escaped!

Didius tried to draw breath to scream, but all that came out was a squeak, as, in a blur of ringing steel and harsh breath the other guard was run through, dropping to the muddy ground with a thud.

And then the savage was looking at the horse, and then up, up into Didius’s own face, and all sound died on his lips, frozen there by utter terror. In the half-light, the man’s eyes glinted with the same coldness as his stolen blade. Didius saw death there.

Suddenly there was a commotion at the gate behind them, and the shouts of soldiers from inside the camp. The whites of the man’s eyes flashed as he glanced behind him, and before Didius could do anything he vaulted on to the horse’s back behind the saddle, his hard legs gripping Didius’s own.

Didius twisted, gagging with terror, hearing the gate being wrenched
back, the snatches of alarm in his own language. And then something hard slammed into the back of his head, and he slipped into the merciful dark.

As the horse raced through the mist, Eremon concentrated on maintaining his speed as well as his balance. If he fell, he would be dead. And he did not have much of a lead. Hopefully, though, it would take time to mount a pursuit. With any luck, it was just enough of a surprise that they would do nothing until they told Agricola.

Luckily, these Roman beasts were big, and he’d judged that this one was large enough and fresh enough to carry two for a short while.

He kept a grip on the Roman slumped unconscious before him. Strange, that sudden, but undeniable compulsion to knock the man out and take him, rather than dumping him on the ground. It was an impulse from the gods. But why? Obviously, the man’s information would be useful. And perhaps he would also buy back the trust of the Epidii after this escapade.

Perhaps he would make up for Eremon’s doubt on the hilltop.

They were reaching the edge of the open fields now and approaching the forest. Even in the mist, Eremon had his bearings. He would have to slow down in the trees, but there was no other way. Then, just before they reached the dark mass of the woods, he felt a pattering of drops on his face. He glanced up. It was raining, and judging by the sound, it was settling to be hard rain, and long.

Eremon was pleased, for it would wash away his tracks. Samana knew where he left his men, but he did not think she would come out in this weather, not unless Agricola dragged her.

His lip curled, and now that he was on the run, he released the fury that had been simmering within him since yesterday.
Fool! You were nothing but a rutting bull. Now you find your cow was being mounted by a good many besides you
.

He’d kept it all damped down, as he was watched by the soldiers on the hilltop, as he ate and lay with Samana – though he had worked some of the rage out between her thighs. But now, beneath his wet clothes, his chest burned. Did Samana bewitch him after all? She must have done, for the hate he now felt was as strong as the lust had been. His skin crawled again with the memory of her ensnaring, slippery magic, and he shivered to be free of it.

Through the rain and mist, day could barely be seen, and time seemed not to move as he forded streams and kept to the high paths. But eventually he reached the mouth of the glen where his men camped, and Colum and Fergus stepped out before him.

‘We must go!’ he gasped out. ‘Leave everything but your swords!’

The men knew better than to ask questions now, though they all
eyed the Roman, still slumped in the saddle. Eremon felt him stirring, and grabbing him by the hair, he turned his face, intending to get him to ride behind. But the Roman’s eyes rolled white with terror, before they faded and closed once more.

With a few curt commands, Eremon had him tied over the horse’s rump more securely, and in moments they left the valley through its higher entrance, coming out on to the top of the ridgeway where they could run unhindered for a good way.

Rori galloped alongside Eremon as they went, obviously burning with questions, but after one look at his prince’s face he kept his silence.

They flew through that day and night, heading south, keeping to the ridges and glens, only stopping to rest the horses. There did not appear to be any pursuit, but Eremon drove them on relentlessly. ‘We have to get back to Conaire and Rhiann before Samana can send word home. Then we must fly for Dunadd!’